The wind howled across the shattered plains of Veylan Ridge, carrying with it the scent of blood, fire, and ash. Beneath a sky bruised with unnatural hues, Liora stood motionless, staring at the collapsed remnants of what had once been a sanctuary for nomadic veilcasters. Now, it was nothing but a broken husk—silent, smoking, and defiled.
She tightened her grip around the obsidian staff, its edges still glowing faintly from her last surge of power. Her hand trembled. Not from fear. From exhaustion. From restraint. From the unbearable weight of what she'd done.
Behind her, Iskar limped into view, one arm slung uselessly at his side, his shoulder oozing a deep, tar-colored wound that refused to clot. "They didn't even hesitate," he muttered. "Children, Liora. They slaughtered them like dogs."
"I know." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
This wasn't the work of rogue mages. It had the stench of the White Circle—a precision strike designed to provoke her, to unravel her. And it was working.
A low groan came from the rubble. Liora's eyes snapped to it. She raced forward, hurling chunks of stone aside with desperate hands. Iskar knelt beside her, biting back pain with each movement. Together, they pulled free a bloodied young man—no older than sixteen. His chest rose in shallow, rattling breaths.
"Liora…" the boy croaked, eyes wide with something beyond pain. "It… it wore your face."
Liora froze.
"What did?"
"It said…" he coughed, blood spilling from the side of his mouth, "…'I was made in your image.'"
Then silence.
No sobbing. No scream. Just silence.
Something cold slithered through her spine—deeper than fear. This wasn't Mavrek's doing. This was someone—or something—else. A fragment of herself she never consented to birth.
She stood slowly, face unreadable.
Iskar looked up. "Liora, what is it?"
"I think they've made a copy of me."
He went pale. "That's impossible."
"No," she said quietly. "It's exactly what I would do… if I wanted to break me."
That night, around the flickering remnants of their fire, the survivors gathered. There were only eleven. Of the thirty-eight who had fled here days before, only a handful remained.
Kirin, the quiet seer from the desert coast, tended to the wounded. His sightless eyes saw truths others missed. "The White Circle grows desperate," he murmured. "And desperation spawns recklessness."
"Or brilliance," added Liora bitterly.
"Both, sometimes."
She turned toward him, something sharp glinting in her expression. "You saw this coming?"
"I saw a version of this. I prayed it would not be ours."
Across from them, Iskar was slumped against a crumbling tree trunk, carving something into the dirt with the tip of his blade. Names. She saw it now. The names of the dead.
Liora knelt beside him.
"I can't keep doing this," he said, voice hollow.
"You think I can?" Her hand brushed his cheek. "Every time we take a step forward, we lose pieces of ourselves. But if we stop now, those pieces were for nothing."
He looked at her, broken but still fighting. "Tell me we can win."
She didn't lie.
"I don't know. But I know this: I'm not done yet."
Later, alone beneath the gnarled skeleton of a lightning-blasted tree, Liora reached for her soul-fused shard—the one she'd forged in the Echo Rites weeks ago. The energy within it pulsed, chaotic and furious. It wasn't just her power now. It was theirs.
She closed her eyes, slipping into meditation.
And then she was somewhere else.
A vast, dark field. The stars above pulsed in time with her breath. Standing across from her was herself—or what looked like her. Taller. Paler. More elegant. Its eyes were voids, shimmering with malice and knowing.
"You finally came," it said, voice soft and venomous.
"What are you?" Liora demanded.
"I'm what you could become. I'm what the White Circle wants you to be. Power without restraint. Flesh without soul."
Liora stepped forward. "I'll never become you."
"Oh, darling," it smiled, "you already are."
It lunged.
She braced—but there was no impact. Instead, a flood of memories hit her like a tidal wave. Pain. Death. Lust. Glory. The shadow version of herself had lived lives within the last few weeks—lives stolen from those she'd touched through the soul shard. It had grown strong from the echoes.
Back in the real world, Liora gasped and clutched her head, blood trickling from her nose.
This wasn't just a magical projection. This was a splinter of her soul—weaponized and loosed.
And it was coming.
Far away, atop a crystalline spire deep in White Circle territory, Mavrek stood with his back to a kneeling figure cloaked in red. The chamber pulsed with runes as ancient machines stirred.
"She's nearly ripe," Mavrek said. "You've done well."
The figure nodded.
"Release the doppelgänger. Let her loose in the lowlands. Make her hungry."
"And the trial site?"
"Prepare it," Mavrek said. "She'll come to us soon enough. And when she does…"
He turned, eyes gleaming with wicked fire.
"…she'll either ascend or shatter."